Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (22 page)

Soon he was only a few inches away from the woman’s face. It was so real he felt like she was really there. Then as quickly as it had come the scent disappeared.

He turned to Jason.

“It’s gone,” Grant said.

“Like a fan just blew it all out the window,” Jason said.

Just then the lights flickered. A moment later the room was plunged into darkness.

“What just happened?” Jason shouted.

“The lights went out!”

Quickly, Grant turned on his flashlight. He ran to get a camera and started snapping pictures of the room. He took twenty in a row of the area near the photograph of the woman. Then, a few seconds later, the lights came back on.

“That was something,” Jason said.

“Yeah, but
what
?” Grant asked.

In the morning, the first thing the team did was review the audio that Mark and Mike recorded in the saloon. The team listened, but all they heard was Mark and Mike asking questions. No EVPs. No piano music.

“I’m disappointed,” Mike said. “I just figured with everything
leading up to this, the music from a broken piano and the high EMF reading… It all led me to think we would catch something on the audio.”

“You can’t predict what you’re going to catch,” Grant said. “But how can music come from a broken piano? That’s a real find.”

“I agree,” said Lyssa. “There’s no other explanation as to where the music came from.”

Mike nodded.

“I guess you guys are right,” he said. “Even without an EVP, it
still
adds up to something paranormal.”

Next, the team looked at the footage Lyssa and Jen took. They synced up the recordings and played them both frame by frame. The hot spot appeared on Jen’s film the exact same instant the light appeared in Lyssa’s footage.

“Whoa!” Mark exclaimed. “Look at that! It came out of nowhere!”

“It’s definitely not attached to anything,” Mike said. “It’s just a glowing ball… See, it even moves up and down slightly.”

“And you’re absolutely sure there was nothing that caused the reflection? Not a flash on the camera, anything like that?” Jason asked.

“There wasn’t anything,” Lyssa said. “Jen and I looked everywhere. But I have a theory. Layne said the man had beady eyes, that he looked angry. And then I remembered something Mark had mentioned. He had said the cattle ranchers hired
watchmen, whose job it was to make sure no one stole their cattle. In the shack, I asked if there were robbers around. That’s when we saw the flash. I think the spirit could be a night watchman. Do you guys think it’s possible?”

“Sure, it’s possible,” Jason said. “But without doing more investigating, I don’t know if we can prove that. But looking at what you got here, there’s clearly something paranormal going on.”

Finally, Grant looked at the pictures he took of the gift shop. He stopped on one of the woman above the register. Even in the picture of the picture she looked real. There was just something very eerie about her face and the way she smiled.

“I think it’s time we have a talk with Layne,” Grant said. “He should know what we found.”

When the TAPS team arrived back at Tombstone the next day, groups of visitors were just beginning to show up. The team found Layne near the saloon and waved to him.

“Good morning,” Layne said. “I’m eager to hear what you found.”

Lyssa showed him the footage of the shining light in the shack.

“We looked for every possible explanation,” Jen said. “But we came up with nothing that could make this glow, so we have to conclude that something paranormal is happening.”

“That’s so strange,” Layne said. “That’s right where the man I saw was standing.”

Then Mike told him about the broken piano.

“With all this evidence, I think we can say the saloon is haunted, too,” Mike said.

“But there’s one thing that happened I’d like to ask you about,” Grant said. “Are there any electrical problems in the gift shop?”

“No. Because of all the tourists, we have maintenance crews working on the buildings at all times.”

“Are the lights on any sort of timer?”

“Definitely not. I turn off all the lights at night.”

“Do you sell any sort of perfume in the gift shop?”

Layne’s eyes widened.

“Mary.”

“Who’s that?”

“The picture…”

Grant looked stunned. “What do you mean?”

“I thought it was all in my head…” Layne said. “The woman in the picture. Her name was Mary Fly. Her husband owned the photography shop. I’ve also smelled flowers in the gift shop. Especially when I’m near her photograph.”

“That’s amazing!” Grant said. “Both Jason and I had the same experience. It’s what we call a phantom smell. It’s very possible that Mary’s spirit is present and shows itself by the
scent of her perfume. And what’s even stranger is as soon as we found the source of the scent, the lights went out for no reason.”

“With so much different activity going on here,” Jason explained, “I think the question isn’t whether this place is haunted, but what other parts of the town have activity that we don’t know about.”

“From everything we’ve seen, this seems to be a residual haunt,” Grant concluded. “The spirits have no idea they are in the modern world. They just replay their lives over and over again.”

“Sort of like the shoot-out show,” Layne said.

“Exactly.”

The group said their good-byes and got back in the van. As they pulled out into the desert, Lyssa saw that cars full of tourists were passing by to check out Tombstone—a
real
ghost town.

“
T
here’s something down there.”

Twelve-year-old Cynthia Parker crouched by her bedroom window, staring down into the backyard. A full moon was slowly creeping up the sky. It shone through the bare branches of the woods just outside the back fence, filling the yard with strange shadows.

Cynthia’s older sister, Amanda, peered over Cynthia’s shoulder.

“I can’t see a thing,” she said.

“I heard it,” Cynthia insisted. “I heard something moving around.”

Every night, the same sound woke Cynthia, and every night
she ran to the window and stared down into the yard. But she never saw the creature making the sound. She just heard it: the deep, steady panting of some enormous animal.

“There’s nothing down there,” Amanda said, her voice sharp. “You can see that for yourself. There’s no reason to get all freaked out.”

“I didn’t say I was all freaked out.”

“But you are. I can hear it in your voice.”

So what?
Cynthia thought. She scrunched her shoulders so she wasn’t touching Amanda. Anybody would be freaked if there might be something in his or her own backyard.

Something strange. Something that did
not
belong. It had to be some kind of wild animal. The nearby woods were filled with them. But Cynthia had never heard an animal that sounded like this.

“I’m going down there,” she announced.

“No way,” Amanda protested as Cynthia stood up quickly. “Mom’s not home yet. You know she’s working the late shift at the hospital this week. She’ll ground me for a month if I let anything happen to you.”

“Nothing’s
going
to happen to me,” Cynthia said. She started for the bedroom door.

“You don’t know that,” Amanda argued.

“Sure I do,” Cynthia came right back. “You told me so yourself. There’s nothing down there.”

Before Amanda could stop her, Cynthia rushed out of the bedroom and through the house. She didn’t slow down until she reached the door that led to the backyard.

Creeeaaaakkk.

Cynthia was trying to be brave. But just the sound of the back door sent a shiver down her spine. It reminded her of every horror movie she had ever watched: The door would squeak, and then the monster would jump out. But that was just in movies, right? There was no monster.

Was there?
Cynthia had to know what was making the strange noise.

Still, she wished she hadn’t come down here alone. Cynthia poked her head out the back door. The moon was higher and brighter now. The wind rattled the bare branches of the trees in the woods. The backyard was covered with dead leaves. They made a whispering sound as they blew across the dry grass.

Cynthia tightened her grip on her flashlight. It was a gift from Mom’s brother, Uncle Dave, the king of all flashlights. He gave each of them one for Christmas every year.

Cynthia switched on the flashlight. She breathed a sigh of relief as the wide, bright beam of light sliced across the yard. She stepped out onto the back porch steps. She held the flashlight out in front of her, aiming the light at the chain-link fence that separated their yard from the woods.

That’s where the sounds came from.

Cynthia lifted her right foot to go down the first of the porch steps—and heard the tiniest whisper of sound
behind
her!

Choking back a cry, Cynthia whirled around.

“Watch it,” Amanda whispered. “And get that light out of my eyes.”

Heart thundering, Cynthia lowered the flashlight.

“Are you
trying
to scare me to death?” she asked her sister. “Because if so, hey, really good job.”

“I’m sorry, all right?” Amanda said. “I decided I couldn’t let you go alone.”

“Why not?”

There was a pause.

“Because you’d never let me go alone,” Amanda finally said.

She turned on her own flashlight. Cynthia muffled a burst of crazy laughter when she realized her older sister had grabbed the biggest flashlight in the house.

“You really think there’s something out there, don’t you?” Amanda asked.

“Yes,” Cynthia said. “I really do.”

“All right,” Amanda said. “Then let’s go find it.”

It was Cynthia’s idea to walk together, arms linked, straight up the middle of the yard. Cynthia swept her flashlight to the right, Amanda, to the left. The lights the girls carried were powerful enough for them to see the corners of the yard.

But there was nothing to see. So far.

Dead leaves crunched underfoot. When her light hit the chain-link fence, Cynthia could see more dead leaves pressed up against it.

“The neighbors probably think we’re nuts,” Amanda said after a couple of moments.

“Not the Lutzes,” Cynthia replied. The Lutzes lived on the corner. They had garden gnomes in their front yard. A lot of them. Mrs. Lutz even gave them all names.

Amanda grinned. “If Mrs. Lutz sees our lights, she’ll probably think aliens are landing.”

The girls reached the back fence and stopped.

“Now what?” Amanda asked. “There’s no way I’m going any farther than the yard.”

“Me, neither,” Cynthia said. “You think I’m nuts?”

“Sometimes I do. Like now,” Amanda said. She aimed her flashlight through the fence. They could see the woods just beyond the fence. They could make out a narrow grass path leading deeper into the dark woods.